Starting this Tuesday, family daycare service managers unionized with the CSQ are called upon to decide on a mandate for pressure tactics to be used at the appropriate time.
This is not a mandate for an unlimited strike, but a mandate for “progressive, escalating” pressure tactics, which could eventually lead to targeted service interruptions, explained the president of the Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance (FIPEQ), Valérie Grenon.
The meetings are to be held from September 3 to 30 in all 17 regions of Quebec where the FIPEQ, affiliated with the CSQ, has members in family daycare services.
The FIPEQ also has thousands of members in CPEs, but this time it is its members in family daycare services who are concerned by these assemblies. It has approximately 9,000 members in family daycare services.
In an interview, Ms. Grenon explained that her members had reached this point because negotiations were making little progress, after several months of talks with the Ministry of Families and the Treasury Board.
The collective agreements with these officials expired in March 2023, at the same time as the public sector collective agreements. The FIPEQ had filed its applications in September 2023, but Quebec did not file its offers until April 2024.
Family daycare providers are not paid by the hour. They receive a subsidy from Quebec, which covers their salary, food for the children, housing, toys and equipment needed for the daycare service.
Negotiations are still ongoing, however. Three meetings are planned for September and dates have been set through December, Grenon noted.
She maintains that Quebec has not improved its offer since it was filed in April. It still does not offer what it had finally offered to union members in the public and parapublic sectors to reach an agreement with them.
“Things have to change; things have to improve,” says the union leader.
If its members vote in favour of the pressure tactics mandate, it hopes not to have to use it and that the pressure will be enough to change the situation, especially since Quebec urgently needs places in daycare services.
If the mandate were granted, by the September 30 deadline, the exercise of these possible pressure tactics could not be long in coming. “The members are very mobilized. It will go quickly,” warns Ms. Grenon.